14 Feb
2001
14 Feb
'01
5:33 a.m.
I think that not being able to access greater than 2GB makes it difficult
to setup a large disk, even if you are keeping the individual partitions
to less than 2GB. I don't know the exact details, but the version of SunOS
that I had just wouldn't do it. Maybe there was a patch or update which
would have fixed the problem as you describe.
In my case, I wanted to use the IPX on a daily basis and be able to install
all of the latest applications (apache, qpopper, etc.). This is why I went
with NetBSD. I tried Linux, but it was dog slow on the sparc (see my previous
post about this).
If he doesn't have a real application for the box and doesn't require the
latest greatest software, then one of the old SunOS releases should be fine.
--tom
At 01:49 PM 2/14/01 -0500, you wrote:
> From: Tom Uban <uban(a)ubanproductions.com>
>
> The older SunOS system runs very well on this, but condider that if you
> need to use a "modern" hard drive, you will be limited to about 2GB (I
think)
if you use one
of the older OS's. That is why I went to NetBSD, it has kept
up with the latest hardware...
There may be firmware limitations on the location of the root
filesystem, depending on the SCSI commands used by the boot PROM.
I think you're correct that (in stock SunOS4) PARTITIONS cannot exceed
2GB, but I'm happily runing a 4GB disk (largest partition is 1.6G),
and I've seen 9GB disks on SunOS4 systems. You may not be able to do
absolute seeks to the 'c' partition with disk larger than 2G, but
that's never caused me any problems. I think there was also a
"disksuite" add-on, to handle large disks more gracefully, but it's
not needed.
-phil